Mysterious test of American chemical weapons in the Utah desert

'Dugway sheep incident' is the name used to refer to a tragic death of 6,000 sheep in very suspicious circumstances that occurred in March 1968.

From the tracks left at the scene of the dead sheep, investigators believe that the US military is trying to cover up evidence of trials and conceals of chemical weapons worth the price. million dollars.

The morning of March 14, 1968, began another new day as well as every other day in the secluded, snow-white countryside of the Skull Valley in Utah. But for Sheriff Fay Gillette of Tooele County, that day's 'tragedy tragedy' remained intact in his heart many years later.

As for the rest of the United States, the 'incident' in Tooele County is a gunfire that triggered a heated debate over the use of chemical weapons. Later when talking to an investigative reporter, sheriff Fay Gillette shuddered to remember: 'I have never seen such a scene. It was like a scene after a bomb explosion. The sheep lay dead. They form a long white trail. '

Is the sheep dying of botulism? Or do they accidentally 'cup' the leaves of the plant and the pesticides? There is also a perpetrator who has been warned: Dugway Proving Ground (DPG) , a base that tests the US military's largest biochemical weapons, is located only 80 degrees from Salt Lake City. miles and 27 miles away from the ill-fated sheep scene. When the sheep died, the DPG spokesman denied that the unit had not conducted any weapons testing in the days before the "murder" incident .

Overview of Dugway Proving Ground (DPG).

But on March 21, 1968, US Senator Frank Moss, a Democrat representing the state of Utah, published a Pentagon report that said: " On the 13th 3 1968 - just a day before Sheriff Fay Gilette reached the scene of the dead sheep - a high-speed plane sprayed about 1,211 liters across the Dugway area during a weapons test. This colorless, tasteless learning only requires less than 10 milligrams to kill people when they are suffocating and horribly breathing. "

After the "tragedy" , veterinarians and local health officials still braced themselves to investigate the incident. They discovered that: the aircraft carrying VX toxic gas contained in containers and they were leaking, blowing toxic gas out when the aircraft climbed, causing poisonous gas to spray hard on the test area. below. The unlucky sheep had eaten the chemical-covered grass.

And they died one after another within 24 hours, others poisoned and got sick a few weeks before dying. Investigator Philip Boffey's report, published in Science, wrote: 'After poisoning, the sheep dazzled , their heads fell to the ground and tilted to one side, the step was wrong, difficult to control. These are exactly the signs that scientists claim to be due to VX neurotoxic gas'.

But the most accurate report came from the US National Center for Infectious Diseases (NCDC) in Atlanta, after testing water and food in the area of ​​sheep poisoning as well as testing the blood and liver of children. sheep died.

NCDC's tests have demonstrated that: 'the reactions are identical, there is no doubt that they are caused by the same chemical'. Although the scope of the incident is very large, state and national, but very few residents in the district are really aware of this threat. There is a part of the fact that the military is the largest HR recruiter in Utah.

Although the US military never published a full, detailed report, they also paid the compensation amount of $ 376,685 to sheep farm owner Alvin Hatch, who lamented that up to 90% of the sheep's He is affected. The army also lent Mr. Hatch a bulldozer to bury the sheep carcasses and began to review the safety process at Dugway.

Before 1969, chemical weapons were banned from use under international agreements. After the Great World War I, almost every major power owned them nuclear weapons - resulting in 1 million injuries and over 90,000 deaths - Western nations together signed the Geneva Protocol in 1925.

This Protocol prohibits the use of biochemical and chemical weapons, and over a period of time it seems that many countries have followed this decree. But the United States has never signed the Geneva Protocol. In the 1961 and 1969 periods alone, the US military spent $ 2 billion to upgrade their biochemical and arsenal, according to scientific historian Simone Müller in his book entitled Title 'Historical social research'.

Congressman Richard McCarthy decided to learn more and determined to expose the chemical weapons complex to the American public. Beginning in May 1969, Mr. McCarthy urged organizing Congressional hearings to uncover the influence of the US chemical weapons program and discover that the program handled them with a written code. off: CHASE. That's how Americans treat toxic chemicals: transfer them to ships and throw them into the sea, digging holes in the sea and burying them.

Less than 1 year after the Dugway incident, around July 1969, a small chemical leak was discovered for nerve gas weapon at a US military base on Okinawa Island (Japan).

The incident injured 24 people, no one died. Newspapers and public opinion quickly caught the details of the relationship between Okinawa and Utah. The Science report states: 'The Pentagon acknowledged that, outside of Utah, there are other locations for outdoor testing of poisons Tabun, Sarin, Soman, VX and mustard gas'.